Eclectablog reports that the Educational Achievement Authority will finally close–but not for 18 months. EAA was Governor Rick Snyder’s experiment on Detroit’s children. Broadie John Covington was hired to run it, and he ran it into the ground.
Detroit schools are under state control and so far the state has failed to improve anything.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It was never about improving the schools. Like everything else the Governerd did, does, and will do to Michigan, it’s all about funneling taxpayer funds to third party “consultants&rdquo and corporations who funnel a hefty percentage of it back into TEAGOP campaign coffers. That is the only way Snydley’s s “Not On My Agenda” agenda that fails in every other way can keep itself running cash-flow-wise.
Check out this spin story–sure, kids are still failing miserably, but the principal is ex TFA, most of the teachers were fired, and even the kids talk about being taught what will be on “the test.”
Bottom line: the kids are still FAILING.
As in Michigan, it’s another example of “improving” a school.
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/02/a-turnaround-in-denver/460086/
I can’t agree with you, Cupcake, at least not from the picture painted by The Atlantic article. This is a school where children are happy, are learning, and feel safe. It has gone through some difficult transitions, and while I do not like the model they chose for “transformation,” I’m not sure we should discount the successes they have had. Yes, by test scores they still are failures, but aren’t we against defining kids just by tests? I may not like the way the principal was trained, but I think there is some evidence that she is more than the sum of her less than stellar training. She made an unusual move by reform standards to include her staff in creating a better climate. What we can argue against is that on balance the reform movement has not produced stellar candidates as teachers or administrators. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be some who rise above the pack. Perhaps the happy parents and students were cherry picked, but let’s reserve judgement until we hear differently.
I can expect ed reform brain trust to do a rigorous data-based analysis of what happened with the ELA in Michigan, right?
We got millions of words on New Orleans. Why doesn’t Michigan get any love?
The ELA was Eli Broad’s plan, and the extent to which it was Eli Broad’s plan was only revealed when a state legislator sued for emails.
Maybe we could get some actual, honest analysis before we plunk this down all over the country, including the garbage “blended learning” approach they banked on?
Might be time for someone “in the movement” to break ranks and stand up to him before we’re all stuck with his “vision” for public schools. I would hope it would be an elected official but that’s probably unthinkable at this point.
This is kind of interesting:
“Testifying Thursday before a state senate committee, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan pushed lawmakers – considering a $715 million proposal to reform the debt-plagued Detroit Public Schools – to restore local control to the district and create a commission with authority to open and close traditional and charter schools.
“If your local district had five superintendents in less than five years, your constituents would be up in arms demanding change,” Duggan said. “Yet that’s what we have seen and that’s why the feeling is so deep about the need for local control.”
Duggan has deliberately stayed out of school issues up until now. He ran on “get the streetlights back on” – no “bold and disruptive visionary” stuff.
I wonder if he’s legit with this as far as it coming from the people who live there and use the public schools. The chaos and constant churn of ed reform has become such a marker of the “movement” I have come to believe it’s deliberate.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/02/local_control_charter_schools.html